Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of a higher rate of VAT on debt repayment by businesses in the hospitality and retail sectors.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The temporary reduced rate of VAT was introduced on 15 July 2020 to support the cash flow and viability of around 150,000 businesses and protect over 2.4 million jobs in the hospitality and tourism sectors. As announced at Budget 2021, the Government has extended the temporary reduced rate of VAT of 5% for the tourism and hospitality sector. This relief ended on 30 September. On 1 October 2021, a new reduced rate of 12.5% was introduced to help ease affected businesses back to the standard rate. This new rate will end on 31 March 2022.
This relief will cost over £7 billion and, while all taxes are kept under review, there are no plans to extend the 12.5% reduced rate of VAT. The Government has been clear that this relief is a temporary measure designed to support the cash flow and viability of sectors that have been severely affected by COVID-19. It is appropriate that as restrictions are lifted and demand for goods and services in these sectors increases, the temporary tax reliefs are first reduced and then removed in order to rebuild and strengthen the public finances.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many businesses are awaiting confirmation of their rateable value so that they can receive a rate demand from their local authority; and how many of those awaiting confirmation received a visit from the Valuation Office Agency in (a) 2019, (b) January to March 2020 and (c) since March 2020.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The table below shows the number of cases the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) had outstanding in England at 31 December 2020 for properties that were new or required a split or merger (reconstitution). It also includes the number of property inspections undertaken on any of these outstanding cases.
When assessing properties the VOA have access to a variety of information sources, which means it is not always necessary to visit a property to complete a case. The VOA will inspect where they need to gather additional information or confirm facts.
The VOA’s systems are property based, rather than occupier based, and therefore the information is by case/property, rather than by business.
| Outstanding |
New Assessments(1) | 4,854 |
of which had either a full, partial or external inspection in: |
|
Jan 2019 - Dec 2019 | - |
Jan 2020 - Mar 2020 | - |
Apr 2020 - Dec 2020 | 55 |
|
|
Reconstitution(1) | 5,678 |
of which had either a full, partial or external inspection in: |
|
Jan 2019 - Dec 2019 | 0 |
Jan 2020 - Mar 2020 | - |
Apr 2020 - Dec 2020 | 12 |
(1) New Assessments and Reconstitutions represent all cases of these types in either a Check, Challenge or Assessment Review.
For disclosure reasons, numbers above 0 and below 5 are denoted with a ‘-‘.
Statistics on all outstanding Checks, Challenges and Assessment Reviews are published on a quarterly basis at www.gov.uk/government/statistics/non-domestic-rating-challenges-and-changes-2017-and-2010-rating-lists-december-2020.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many staff were employed by the Valuation Office Agency in (a) 2016, (b) 2017, (c) 2018, (d) 2019 and (e) 2020; and how many staff are currently employed by that office.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The VOA publish staff numbers in their Annual Reports. Reports from 2016 onwards can be found at: https://bit.ly/3t9cTdg.
The VOA publish the latest staff figures in the Workforce Management Information report, which can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-and-voa-workforce-management-information-january-2021.